EPICentre

News and Events

Maldives Building Regulatory Capacity Assessment – First Workshop

Publication date:
4 March 2019

Prof. Tiziana Rossetto is in the Maldives with Urban Planning & Governance experts Fathimath Rasheed and Aishath Abdulla. Together they have organised a workshop facilitating discourse and consultations with local stakeholders to determine their aspirations for an improved system of Building Regulations and identify barriers and opportunities for their implementation. The workshop has been a great success, with engagement from several government departments, professional associations and practitioners. Output from the workshop will help to determine the current state of national level legislation and institutions, building code development and land use regulation, and local implementation and enforcement.

NEW MAJOR RESEARCH GRANTS FOR EPICentre

Publication date:
14 February 2019

The EPICentre research group has received several major research grants over the past two months:

Prof Tiziana Rossetto, Prof Dina D'Ayala, Prof Francesca Medda and Dr Carmine Galasso are all co-investigators of the newly funded, £19.6 million GCRF Urban Disaster Risk Hub. The GCRF Urban Disaster Risk Hub comprises research based in four cities around the world – Nairobi (Kenya), Quito (Ecuador), Istanbul (Turkey) and Kathmandu (Nepal) – chosen due to their exposure to various natural hazards and for variation in urban layout, development status and governance. It aims to build resilience against various natural hazards, such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, floods, cyclones, etc. The project, led by the University of Edinburgh, will involve several international universities and agencies to bring disaster risk management to the centre of global urban policy and practice, strengthening the voice and capacity of the urban poor. Bringing together leading researchers with inspiring community and government leaders, the Hub will work at an unprecedented scale to deliver real impact through interdisciplinary research. UCL-CEGE investigators will take a leading role in the Hub, with Prof Rossetto coordinating all the engineering aspects of the project and the other UCL team member leading various project tasks and activities, particularly for the Istanbul case study. More details at: https://nerc.ukri.org/press/releases/2019/03-hubs/

EPICentre team participating in the new UKIERI funded project “Seismic Design and Fragility Assessment of Retrofitted Structures"

Publication date:
29 October 2018

Dr Fabio Freddi has been awarded a collaborative, international research grant UKIERI (UK-India Education and Research Initiative) in collaboration with Dr Jayadipta Ghosh (Indian Institute of Technology - IIT Bombay) to investigate the topic of retrofit methods for reinforced concrete structures accounting for the influence of aftershocks and parameters uncertainty. The project is also supported by Dr Carmine Galasso from EPICentre and Dr Needhi Kotoky and Dr Meera Raghunandan from IIT Bombay.

EPICentre team participating in the new SERA funded project: HITFRAMES

Publication date:
26 October 2018

Dr Fabio Freddi has been awarded a collaborative, international research grant to develop the ‘Hybrid Testing of an Existing Steel Frame with Infills under Multiple Earthquakes’ (HITFRAMES). The EPICentre team collaborating within the HITFRAMES project is composted by Dr Freddi and Fernando Gutierrez Urzua and is also supported by Dr Carmine Galasso and Dr Arash Nassirpour.

Is dynamics just earthquake engineering?

EEFIT report Research Award 2017

Safer, more resilient communities through safe and resilient schools, London

Publication date:
5 September 2018

On day two (23 October) of the Global Engineering Congress organized by the Institution of Civil Engineers, join this free-to-attend evening lecture organized in collaboration with the Society for Earthquakes and Civil Engineering Dynamics (SECED). Carmine Galasso and Dina Francesca D'Ayala from EPICentre will present the main findings of a number of recent projects they are leading on multi-hazard risk and resilience assessment of school facilities in developing countries.

EPICentre PhD student Rohit Kumar Adhikari, studying under the supervision of Prof Dina D’Ayala, has been awarded the 2018 EEFIT Research Grant for the project entitled “Seismic Resilience of Private Housing in Nepal Constructed in the Post-Earthquake Recovery and Reconstruction after the 2015 Nepal Earthquake”. This is one of the grants that EEFIT awards each year to support short-term projects that will benefit earthquake (and related hazards) disaster mitigation and post-disaster reconnaissance efforts. This is the third year in a row that the UCL-EPICentre researchers have won the EEFIT research grant, namely Harriette Stone in 2016, Valentina Putrino in 2017 and Rohit Kumar Adhikari in 2018. In fact, another awardee this year, Viviana Novelli is also an alumnus of the UCL-EPICentre.

Professor Tiziana Rossetto on Ring of Fire earthquake activity

Publication date:
23 August 2018

The area in the basin of the Pacific Ocean, known as "Ring of Fire" for its frequent seismic and volcanic activity, was hit by sixty-nine earthquakes in the space of 48 hours this week, alarming the population of California.

EPICentre at the European Conference on Earthquake Engineering

Joined research activities on seismic risk prevention

Strong EPICentre delegation at 16th European Conference on Earthquake Engineering

Publication date:
10 May 2018

A large delegation from UCL Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering will attend the 16th European Conference on Earthquake Engineering (16ECEE) in Thessaloniki, Greece, from 18th to 21th June 2018. The conference, hosted by the Hellenic Society of the European Association for Earthquake Engineering and Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, is held every four years, featuring the latest research findings in the field of earthquake engineering. Eighteen current and former researchers from EPICentre will attend the conference, with nineteen papers being selected for oral presentation, and one for poster presentation. This is a recognition of the outstanding work carried out at EPICentre, as only a small portion of submitted papers are typically awarded oral presentation. Also, Prof Tiziana Rossetto, EPICentre Director, will be giving a thematic talk on “Advances in the assessment of buildings subjected to earthquakes and tsunami”. A list of all EPICentre contributions is provided below.

CARTADITALIA

Publication date:
23 February 2018

Professor Tiziana Rossetto is selected to appear in the 3rd Edition of “CARTADITALIA” Journal of Contemporary Italian Culture, published by the Italian Cultural Institute of Brussels, Belgium. In this edition of the journal entitled “New frontiers of Italian Scientific Research”.

EPICentre PhD student Valentina Putrino has been awarded the EEFIT Research Grant

Publication date:
19 January 2018

EPICentre PhD student Valentina Putrino, with mentorship from Prof D’Ayala, has been awarded the EEFIT Research Grant for the project “Cumulative damage assessment and strengthening efficiency of masonry buildings in Norcia affected by the 2016 seismic events in Central Italy”. This is one of the two grants that EEFIT awards each year to support short-term projects that will benefit earthquake (and related hazards) disaster mitigation and post-disaster reconnaissance efforts.The project will make use of the previous findings of the October 2016 EEFIT Reconnaissance Mission in Central Italy sponsored by NERC, with the main aim of investigating the extent of cumulative damage caused by the following swarm of seismic events which struck the historic city centre of Norcia and its surroundings.

EPICentre helps in preserving the Rubens' ceiling canvases at Banqueting House

Publication date:
18 January 2018

Prof. Dina D’Ayala and Dr. Athanasios Pappas are assisting Historic Royal Palaces in the preservation of the magnificent ceiling of the Banqueting House on Whitehall, London. Painted in the early 17th century, it is the only surviving in-situ ceiling painting by Flemish artist, Sir Peter Paul Rubens. The three main canvasses depict The Union of the Crowns, The Apotheosis of James I and The Peaceful Reign of James I.

The paintings were removed from the ceiling and stored for fear of damage during the German bombing of London in 1941. In order to facilitate the emergency removal task, the paintings and their supporting timber frames were cut into smaller sections. After a long and thorough restoration project, the reinstatement of the paintings was completed in 1951.

Almost 70 years since the last major restoration, Historic Royal Palaces have started a new comprehensive research project to investigate the panels and their decorative coffering frames, which includes an evaluation of structural aspects of the paintings related to their removal. EPICentre was asked to help guaranteeing the integrity of some of the most famous works from the golden age of painting.

Dr Galasso awarded two international research grants

Publication date:
18 January 2018

Dr Carmine Galasso has recently been awarded two collaborative, international research grants.

The first one is on 'Dynamic testing of variable friction seismic isolation devices and isolated systems', within the EU-funded 'Seismology and Earthquake Engineering Research Infrastructure Alliance for Europe' (SERA), responding to the priorities identified in the Horizon 2020 call 'INFRAIA-01-2016-2017 Research Infrastructure for Earthquake Hazard'.

Current engagements of EPICentre in the Global Program for Safer Schools (GPSS) project of the World Bank

Publication date:
17 January 2018

Prof Dina D’Ayala and Mr. Rohit Kumar Adhikari are engaged in the GPSS project since July 2016 for providing technical assistance in the structural typology classification and seismic vulnerability analysis of load bearing masonry school in the developing countries such as Nepal and El Salvador. They are travelling to Washington, D.C. to attend a week-long workgroup meetings and workshop from 22 Jan 2018 followed by a technical visit to El Salvador for monitoring the local activities in the country including field visit to selected school facilities. Immediately after, Mr. Adhikari will be travelling to the Universidad de Los Andes, Bogota, Colombia to attend internal working session of the project partners to agree on the methodological approach and preliminary data analysis for the seismic risk assessment and mitigation plan for public schools El Salvador.

EPICentre members give invited talks at ETH Zurich

Publication date:
17 January 2018

Dr Carmine Galasso and EPICentre PhD students Chen Huang and Deyu Ming have given three talks at the 'NatCat and Earthquake Modelling Workshop' (https://people.math.ethz.ch/~wueth/Talks/workshop.html) at the ETH Zurich, Switzerland, on November 24, 2017. The workshop also included talks by representatives of Scor Reinsurance, Lloyd’s, and Swiss Re.

EPICentre and IRDR awarded grant for INSPIRE: Indonesia School Programme to Increase Resilience

Publication date:
16 January 2018

EPICentre and UCL's Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction (UCL-IRDR) have been awarded a Newton Fund Institutional Link grant for the project “INSPIRE: Indonesia School Programme to Increase Resilience”. The partnership for INSPIRE includes EPICentre, UCL-IRDR and the Tsunami and Disaster Mitigation centre (TDRMC) at Syiah Kuala University, Indonesia. The project will be led by Dr Carmine Galasso at UCL and Dr Ella Meilianda at TDMRC .